Naira Crashes to N1,099.05/$1 at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian Naira weakened to a new low on the American Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, December 8, amid speculations that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has again devalued the local currency.

In the previous trading session, there were reports that the exchange rate for clearing cargoes has been raised to N952/$1, sparking rumours that domestic currency would hit N1,000/$1 in the spot market.

On the last trading session of the week, the Naira lost N255.98 or 30.4 per cent of its value on the greenback to trade at N1,099.05/$1 in the official market compared with the previous rate of N843.07/$1.

At NAFEM yesterday, the FX turnover was $137.35 million, $0.1 million lower than the $137.25 million quoted on Thursday, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.

In the peer-to-peer (P2P) segment, the Nigerian currency depreciated against the American currency by N9 to close at N1,188/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N1,179/$1.

In the parallel market window, the local currency crashed against the US Dollar on Friday by N20 to settle at N1,200/$1, in contrast to Thursday’s closing price of N1,180/$1.

However, the Naira appreciated against the Pound Sterling in the spot market on Friday by N1.78 to close at N1,115.24/£1 versus the preceding day’s N1,117.02/£1 and gained N62 Kobo against the Euro to quote at N956.89/€1 versus N957.51/€1.

In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC) depreciated by 1.2 per cent to $43,356.56 as Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.2 per cent loss to trade at $0.6433.

However, Solana (SOL) gained 14.4 per cent to sell at $72.66, Cardano (ADA) added 7.1 per cent to finish at $0.4798, and Ethereum (ETH) grew by 4.9 per cent to $2,372.49, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 1.3 per cent to $74.71, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 0.5 per cent to sell for $234.50, and  Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 0.3 per cent appreciation to sell at $0.0971, while the US Dollar Tether (USDt) and US Dollar Coin (USDC) both traded flat at $1.00 each.